Page 4 of Wrongfully Magicked
His mouth tightens, his eyes narrow, and I swear steam rises from his ears. I bite back a smirk as he stalks forward, but he doesn’t take his own seat, unwilling to lose his position of power.Instead, he plants his hands on the metal table—which kind of looks like a slab from an autopsy room—then leans toward me and gives me a nasty smile.
“Maybe you’re under the wrong impression. I wasn’t asking.” Magic swirls around his hands and skates up his arms. The energy is an angry red, like something he might have caught from a hooker or something.
Gross.
I shiver at the thought of it touching me, and he smirks like he honestly thinks I’m afraid.
It’s kind of pathetic really.
“Listen, you got the wrong girl.” I shrug and finger the hole in my leather jacket, frowning when the tip of my finger goes right through it. It was my favorite jacket, and now it’s ruined because someone fucked up. “I didn’t blow up that building.”
“You were at the scene,” he states like that’s all the evidence he needs. For him, it probably is. Why put in any effort and look for the real bombers when they could just blame me?
“I’m not that inept,” I snap back, my annoyance with the whole situation getting the best of me. For mages, there is no presumed innocence until proven guilty. I guess I should count myself lucky they arrested me instead of executing me on the spot. “I wouldn’t have done something so idiotic as to blow myself up, much less get caught.”
“I’m sure you didn’t intend for it to happen.” A condescending smirk twists his mouth. “Mistakes happen. Sit and tell me who you were targeting, and maybe they’ll spare you the death sentence.”
That’s when I realize nothing I say will change his mind.
To him, I’m guilty.
He’s not even going to try to find the people responsible, and I can’t stop my scowl.
People died in that blast.
They deserve justice.
I’m not going to let this little twatwaffle take justice from them.
I push away from the wall, but instead of taking a seat, I lean forward and mimic his movements until he’s forced to tilt back or breathe the same tainted air as me. I give him a nasty smile, and my eyes go dead as I stare at him.
“Awe, aren’t you adorable? A little gutter rat kid trying to intimidate the grown-ups.” A dark chuckle escapes me, the cuffs going cold around my wrists as the flames become agitated. “But why don’t we get the simple facts straight first, hmm? While people on the streets might know me as Anita Carver, I was born with the name Kerrington.”
He recoils and shoots upright so fast that I’m surprised he doesn’t get whiplash, then he gets pissed for reacting to my words. He tugs on the bottom of his jacket as if trying to smooth his ruffled feathers. When he gets himself under control, he lets out a nasty laugh. “If you think trying to impersonate your betters is going to help you in any way, you sewer trash, then you’re stupider than I thought.”
That’s when I lose it.
My last fuck is officially gone.
If this little fuckboy isn’t going to listen, then I’ll just have to get the attention of someone who will. My shitty parents might not have taught me much, but they did instill me with a fierce desire to live.
I release my hold on the pent-up magic that has been building over the last few hours. If I’m going to die, then I’m going to go out my way and take this fucktwat with me.
The magic hits the cuffs hard enough that my bones threaten to snap under the pressure, and a cutting cold slowly skates up my arms to my elbows. Ignoring the pain, I grit my teeth, refusing to release my hold on my magic. Vicious swearingechoes around the room, followed by the acrid scent of spells being cast then burned away.
Genuine fear crosses the corporate crony’s face as he realizes his mistake, then he gives up trying to throw spells at me and runs for the door.
Not wanting to give up its prey so easily, the fire licks at my flesh almost adoringly. My hair swirls around me as the flames hungrily consume the air before they explode outward in a wall of fire. The metal table melts around the edges before it’s thrown into the wall so hard that it sinks into the cinder blocks, then it wilts and drips down the stone, splattering liquid metal across the floor.
The MID agent releases a girlie scream.
Just as he opens the door, the blast reaches him, throwing him, the door, and bits of the wall a good twenty feet into the hallway. Rubble pelts the ground and walls like bullets, and satisfaction fills me when the agent screams again.
When he scrambles away on his hands and knees, I allow him to escape.
I’m not a murderer.
Though I’m sure I’ll come to regret my decision, I refuse to kill someone with their back turned to me. Instead, I redirect my focus onto my cuffs. My chains warble as the magic in them struggles to contain me, creating tiny fissures along the edges of the cuffs. Then, the individual links heat to a glowing red, and drops of metallic sludge plops to the cement floor.
